The Strength of Community

Up-and-coming comedian Rachael Burke '10 reflects on her rapid rise through the industry and the ways in which Brooks allowed her to explore comedy and community.

Rachael Burke '10 took her first improvisational comedy class in fourth grade. Comedy, she says, is what she's always known she wanted to do. "My family is very humorous," she says, "and I grew up just constantly dressing up in funny outfits, having spontaneous dance parties and putting on shows for my family. I love improving the quality of life of others and making them feel as if their guard is down, and that they're safe and can escape whatever they're experiencing. I also love comedy for my own reasons: I love being on stage and the feeling of performing."

Burke's career in comedy has moved well beyond spontaneous dance parties in her childhood living room. The New York-based comedian spent more than five years working at "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," where her team of four earned two Emmy Awards for social and interactive media, and where she was also a contributing writer. Burke moved on to found the comedy troupe "Kids These Days," which has performed to sold-out audiences, earned rave reviews at major comedy festivals, and recently appeared on several episodes of the NBC comedy competition show "Bring the Funny."

Burke found a mountain of support for her budding interest in comedy at Brooks. She speaks lovingly of English faculty Leigh Perkins '81, who inspired Burke to found an improvisational comedy troupe in her third-form year at Brooks. "She was a big mentor for me," Burke says. "She inspired me to make something happen immediately, and she encouraged me to start the group. We performed in the black box theater and at School Meeting. It was a blast! I knew it was something I wanted to do. I have never felt more free on stage than I felt when I was at Brooks doing improv."

Burke also credits other Brooks faculty with giving her the space to find her passions, including former faculty Alex Costello, Matt Grant, Shaunielle McDonald '94 and Sue Hodgson, as well as current faculty Maylo Keller and even mathematics faculty Doug Burbank who, Burke says, allowed her to doodle in math class ("he understood that's how my brain works, and that's what I needed to be able to do to be interested in learning."). "I think teachers deserve to be thanked," she says, "because they help people, and I think that sometimes they don't even know how much of an impact they've had on so many people."

Burke also reflects on the strong community that she enjoyed at Brooks and its impact on her willingness to try new things. "I think I was lucky to have a class that was really just stacked with wonderful, supportive people," she says. "I had amazing friends who were very loyal and supportive and believed in me. The Brooks community helped foster them to be so confident in themselves and me."

After Brooks, Burke decamped to Trinity College, where the next step in her career presented itself. She remembers watching an episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in which he announced a dance contest. Burke sent a video of herself and her roommate dancing a dance Burke had made up at Brooks, and she won. Burke was able to appear on the show to teach Fallon the dance. Once she had more work experience, she returned to Fallon's set as an intern — with a commute between Hartford, Conn., and New York that tested her dedication to her craft.

"When I was interning, I commuted from Trinity," Burke explains. "I worked in New York on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I took five classes at Trinity. I took the bus; I would leave campus at 4:30 in the morning, get to New York by 9 a.m., work until 7:30 p.m., and then take the bus back to Trinity. I'd get back around 11 p.m., go to sleep, and then wake up and go to class. It's crazy. It was so crazy. If traffic happened, I'd sometimes be on the bus for four hours. Literally nuts."

Burke's pull toward comedy was well-founded, though. She ended up working for Jimmy Fallon through April 2019. Over the course of her time there, Burke ran social media for the show, work for which her team earned two Emmy Awards, and also worked as a contributing writer for desk segments, guest sketches, guest games and monologues. She is deservedly proud of the fact that she got her first Emmy nomination before she graduated from college.

More recently, Burke founded the improv troupe "Kids These Days," which collects a group of, Burke says, "the funniest people I know who are also the kindest comedians that I had experienced in my six-plus years of doing comedy in New York." The group has found resounding success, selling out every single show it's ever done in New York and on tour in eight different states, as well as attracting crowds at major comedy festivals and landing a shot on the NBC comedy competition show "Bring the Funny."

"I think we put on a really special type of show," Burke says. "Everyone in the group has a different sense of humor and comes from different comedic and personal backgrounds. As a result, we make sure each sketch is accessible to everyone, and that the audience understands and appreciates it. We also really care about each other, and really, I think that's what attracts people to our shows: They can see how much we enjoy each other's company on stage."

"There's a feeling you get — it's near euphoria — when you're on stage with your close friends and you just feel like you're doing exactly what you love with the people you love doing it with," Burke concludes. "It's a very comforting feeling. Doing comedy alone can be very lonely, but doing it together with people who have the same intention with their comedy is incredibly empowering."